The Tory petition for a fish and chip shop is proof they’re heading for oblivion

Travel to the Greater London borough of Uxbridge and if you listen very carefully you might just hear the gentle pop of Boris Johnson’s legacy disappearing into thin air.

This week, his successor, Steve Tuckwell – one-time Royal Mail manager and former vehicle leasing specialist – hit on what he saw as the way to reverse the rapid decline of his party’s fortunes. The 50-something MP, who won the seat of Uxbridge and South Ruislip in a by-election in 2023 with a majority of 495 votes, has begun a campaign for a fish and chip shop.

You see, there isn’t one in Uxbridge town centre – while the fortunate folk of neighbouring Cowley or West Drayton can get a saveloy in curry sauce or a medium cod and chips. So Mr Tuckwell popped on his suit, his smart mackintosh and his best blue tie, made a little video and shoved it onto his X (Twitter) feed.

Summoning up the rhetorical skills that back in the day saw him carried on the shoulders of his people to take control of Hillingdon Borough

Council, he decried: “We need to bring one home here. It will support our high street, it will support business, it will help the local economy.”

Except that, er, oh no, it won’t.

That’s not how you get a fish and chip shop. You don’t get a fish and chip shop by launching a campaign on social media. And that the wretched Tory MP thinks that this call to arms is what his constituency needs is a true sign that the poor old Tories are heading for the exit with undue haste.

One feels for his poor team as they were gathered for a late-night, blue-skies thinking pow-wow and then had to grin and bear it as Tuckwell brought out what he thought was his election-saving blinder. The MP presumably thinks that his fish and chip sortie can replace his previous single policy mission, the one that saw him fight off Starmer’s Labour man at the by-election with his “referendum on Ulez” campaign. One in which he leafleted relentlessly but avoided mentioning the party he was standing for.

But now he’s brave enough to mention the Tories, Central Office might want to send a van for a neat abduction to silence the goon. Firstly, it shows an extraordinary misunderstanding of how things (businesses, for example) happen. No company, charity, school, fitness centre or market stall was ever set up because someone raised a petition.

You don’t get a fish and chip shop by asking for people’s signatures. It takes the steely determination of an individual, usually with more passion than common sense or the canny machinations of a national chain (of which there are few in the fish and chip category). And then, to put it mildly, it needs the economic circumstances to be beneficial for such an enterprise to succeed beyond the pages of a business plan.

And, sorry to tell you, Mr Tuckwell, it’s not looking good on that point. It might have escaped your notice but the hospitality business is still facing a perfect storm of crises. Inflationary pressures have increased the cost of doing business while the cost of living crisis has hit consumer spending and the frequency of eating out.

As Kate Nicholls, chief executive of UK Hospitality, has pointed out, operators have been unable to raise prices to cover increases in costs and “on average input costs have risen three times higher than price increases”. The result has been a story of closures, not openings. Nine out of 10 of those closures have been independent site operators – the sorts of businesses that might include fish and chip shops. And, the evidence shows, these businesses aren’t run by dreamers opening branches of vegan-shawarma kebabs funded by daddy’s trust-fund. They are longestablished businesses going to the wall because the economics no longer stack up.

Yet, heading for probable autumn oblivion, Chancellor Jeremy Hunt tinkers at the edge of the tax system and does his best to hobble a future Labour chancellor whereas he should just go out in a blaze of Conservative economic glory.

He could slash taxes, hand power to the regions (giving – only Tory – councils real power to make a difference), roll out actual, working broadband in rural areas and on trains, cancel HS2, stop the self-diagnosed-as-mentally-oppressed from getting sick notes from their pliant GPs, scrap IR35 to kick-start small businesses, raise the VAT threshold to £250,000, champion our cities as places for the superwealthy to invest, and unlock the barriers to building development.

And then, of course, there’s the tragic characterisation that comes with Tuckwell’s call for a fish and chip shop, as if that is the cultural representation he proudly attaches himself to. Not that there is anything wrong with fish and chips as part of a balanced diet.

But such offerings tend to be popular in the demographic segments that over-index in unhealthy eating. Which is a poncey way of saying places that sell fried food tend to attract people who like eating fried food. And what fat people don’t need is more places offering them the chance to get fatter.

What Uxbridge town centre already does have is a Burger King, a Wendy’s, a Nando’s and a Five Guys. What it doesn’t need is a fish and chip shop. What it does deserve is a decent neighbourhood restaurant with locally sourced meat, veg and seafood cooked from scratch on the premises, and a sensible wine list.

And for that to happen the people of Uxbridge need to demand their local MP campaigns for a cap on business rates, a cut in National Insurance contributions to help cover decent wages, and a reduction in VAT.

Uxbridge needs not fish and chips but a decent plan and the political common sense and grit to deliver it. Without one, however, Mr Tuckwell better get ready to drown his election sorrows in Chutneys, on Cowley Road, where, word is, they serve an excellent lamb pasanda.

It may have escaped Mr Tuckwell’s attention but the hospitality business is facing a perfect storm